


Forget About Your House of Cards

by feelitstill



Category: Midsommar (2019)
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, F/M, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 12:49:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28885656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feelitstill/pseuds/feelitstill
Summary: What happens when you think about Dani Ardor listening to Radiohead at 12.24am.
Relationships: Dani Ardor/Christian Hughes, Dani Ardor/Pelle (Midsommar)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 17





	Forget About Your House of Cards

Doesn't want to be here but inevitably is because…well Christian, this is the least she owes him. Before she had routines (skyping Terri, class, early morning library sessions, walking home with Christian to make lunch at her apartment for him, therapy) seldom went out and when she did it was at the behest of him. It only seemed fair after these months he had given her.

Her phone in her pocket gives a phantom buzz against her thigh, she slips her hand in her pocket, squeezing her hand around it, hard enough her thumb clicks. _Not real Not real Not real_. Not anymore. A lump in her throat and sting in her eyes; three less numbers to text her.

Not long ago she would have been calculating lulls in conversations and gaps, to sneak into a corridor, a bathroom, cold balcony to send texts to her mom, dad, but mostly Terri. Talking her sister down enough, to go back to whatever thing was being celebrated but drained with a hollow smile perfected out of not wanting to become the same reason, behind that first eye roll Mark had bestowed her. When she had first gotten together with Christian, asking to go home, breathless with a frantic worry from the _‘I don’t know how much more I can take of this_ ’ text she had received after, despite the two hours prior spent talking to Terri, who had assured her, of just how ‘OK’ she was, then the radio silence that followed indicating the opposite. She never was ‘OK’. Never will be again.

Dani turns to look up at Christian, swallowing down the lump. 

\--------------------------

He is trying not to look at her, reminding himself to react to what the others are saying. Her body present, eyes fixated in the middle distance and not here. A head or two shorter than the rest of them, enough for the others not to notice her ? He had listened to the way they talked about her, not knowing what to make of it, then. Christian now guffawing at Mark's joke. He has to fold his arms to keep from reaching over and what? Touch her? a small touch perhaps...to ground. To put his hands on her shoulders to breathe with her like the first time he saw her do it, like they did at home. _HOH._ Teach her how to breathe like they do. Something, anything and everything. 

This was not _their_ way, he couldn't, it wouldn't take much to disrupt the fine balance, to turn the tide of trust, he had built with the others based on their masculine bravado, with a whiff of jealousy, of a small comfort. They were not in _Hårga_. Yet.

He remembers overhearing her once, long before Christian had introduced them but knowing her from seeing them walking across the campus together. Watching them from his seat by the coffee shop window. Her face turned up towards Christian like a meadow buttercup in search of a little sunlight, 6 flowers and a helping of herring away from dreaming of her true love. She looked away after some steps spent with no reply to her comment or question. Her hand with its tight hold on his first three fingers on her end and letting her hold on and loose wristed on his. His short replies making conserved stilted movements on Christian’s face but the concentration he had in his steps. Unequal in ways.

The library, on a cold stiff morning in October, on the third floor which lacked both the warmth of heating and human kind. Two others dotted near the centre of the room it being only 8 am on a weekend. Hearing the split seconds of a ringtone quickly muted with a husky voice speaking high, quick and switching to an almost cooing tone. Had him looking between the gaps of the shelves of books in front of him and to the person currently talking in a low cautious voice. The back of her bobbled green fleece, the messy bun of hair with an almost halo glow of flyaways under the yellow artificial light that hung over the table she was seated at.

Face in profile, her first knuckles white from her grip on the phone. _‘Please...Terri...Please…no tell me....I’m here for you, Terri please’_ her head moving, looking around. Laptop lid pushed down without a second thought, sharply standing to shove things into her tote _‘Give me a minute...no I’m just packing my stuff up...I’m finished...I promise just tell me what’s happening please’_ pushing her thermos into the tight squeeze of her bag making the shapes bulge out of the cotton material, that bump her side as she settles it on her shoulder. With her face towards the ceiling, eyes closed, the hand not occupying the phone, worrying her forehead. Resting the base of heavy bag on the table, pleading into the phone _‘If it was nothing you would not be this upset…Terri please...I’m going home...I’ll text you and then we can skype ok?....ok give me 20 minutes...ok…I love you….please pick up...promise?....speak in 20’_

She breathes out in huffs, practised, short huffs as quietly as she can, head still aloft towards the square water damp shaped tiles above; eye’s rapidly blinking at the ceiling. A couple of tears making a route along the curve of her cheek helped along by gravity, as she breathes out a long puff of air before roughly wiping her eyes. 

Pelle recognises her all at once, the same girl with the tight grip on Christian’s hand, now holding the phone with the same urgency and the upturned face. Always looking up. She shoulders her bag again, tucks in the chair into the table she occupied and out from between the stacks to the exit. Pelle still frozen in his quarter hunched position, finally stands. Bearing witness to what happened and the comprehension of the picture Mark had built of ‘Christian’s crazy girlfriend’. Who by Christian’s impish smile and his narrations of how far the extent of her ‘neediness ’went, being enough for Mark’s working hypothesis of ‘crazy but hot in bed’ to the human that was just before him. 

When Christian had introduced her to Pelle a week or so after the library, in a corridor waiting for Josh. The three of them stood in a triangle as Christian introduced her with a wave of a hand as _‘Dani’_ rather than _‘My girlfriend Dani’_ the split second of hurt in her eyes Pelle saw as he leaned over to shake her hand. Getting to see her open face head on with it’s sloped nose and pursed lips as she bit the insides of her cheek making a quick small smile at him. Her eyes meeting his and her small hand in his, soft and warm. 

Maybe that’s what Siv had meant, when they talked before he had left, that when the time came he would know 'those meant for bringing home and the ones that felt like home'

[No matter how it ends](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH1QErTVvhE)  
[No matter how it starts](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH1QErTVvhE)

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first ever fic/character study/thing, prompted by reading TrashPanduh 's Nóatún series : https://archiveofourown.org/series/2023907 I'm still thinking about it since reading it and highly recommend it: Dreamiest.


End file.
